Welcome to Litsy!

I really enjoyed this book…a bit supernatural, a bit folklore, a bit romantic, a bit adventurous, with a bit of a suspenseful, dark Gothic feel to it.
First, and to me foremost, Sain excelled at her world-building here. I felt the dark but beautiful woods of the rural town of Lucifer‘s Creek, Arkansas tucked into the Ozark Mountains. The location itself felt like a character.
And speaking of characters I fell for Dovie and Lo hook, line and 🔻

Set in a small town in the Arkansas Ozarks, Dovie doesn‘t believe in magic, despite her own talent for feeling buried bones sing to her. In three years, Dovie has helped the sheriff locate 24 bodies of missing hikers. With no real leads, it falls to Dovie & her best friend to find the culprit, alongside mountain myths, magic & supernatural & natural dangers. It‘s a quick & fun YA thriller! It follows some familiar paths but with surprises too!

This is a southern gothic supernatural thriller that hooked me right away. I really enjoyed the characters, especially Lo, but the setting itself was almost a character all its own. She paints such a beautiful and complete picture of the mountains, the streams, the valleys, the caves–along with the magic that they bring–and the Howler as well. While my suspicions about who was responsible was correct, I was nevertheless enthralled by the story.

This book was the perfect blend of southern small town supernatural thriller YA fiction. Taken together this is the very definition of great gothic Storytelling! With great surprises and red herrings, this was the Nancy Drew style book my 16 year old self always wanted because it was real, current, imaginatively written and filled with all the longing, sweet kisses and pulse pounding emotions to fill any big screen